Monthly Archives: June 2016

When I think about people I admire, something they share in common is that they carry themselves well. They are not arrogant or aloof, but there is a grace and dignity to the way they move. It used to be called ‘deportment’, which as a word has definitely gone out of fashion. And yet the way we sit, stand and walk has a strong influence on our mental state.

The best exercise I’ve come across to practise good posture is walking around the house with a paperback book on your head. Ladies used to do this in finishing school, and for good reason – you immediately feel taller, your head seems to be floating on top of the spine, and your limbs move with natural ease. We have a tendency to collapse into ourselves during the day, and the frequent use of smartphones and tablets has made this much worse. Young children naturally have wonderful postures, with erect spines and heads which are upright, their eyes open and curious as they eagerly explore the world. To see two-year-old children hunched over small electronic devices is a pretty sad sight.

If we were constantly admonished to ‘sit up straight’ when we were young, we may feel resistant to the idea of walking tall now. Good posture is not about being stiff, like a wooden puppet, or like being in the army marching to someone else’s beat. We don’t slump forward, but we also don’t draw our shoulders back too far. Most importantly, posture is about free-flowing movement, not stiffening into some idealised state.

Movement practices like Tai Chi and yoga can help us to feel more at home in our bodies. Also, getting lessons from an Alexander technique or Feldenkrais practitioner can support us to use our bodies more effectively. The natural state of our bodies is to be flowing, graceful and strong. Just like water can’t flow through a hose which is crinkled, so energy can’t flow freely through a body which is stiff and tense, and huddled over.

We all have a point where our bodies feel most balanced and free, and exploring our bodies, and learning what this balanced point feels like for us, can be very liberating.

Weekly practice idea:

Try the exercise of walking around the house with a light book on your head. Then try to keep some of the same sense of being upright and alert as you walk during the rest of the day.

It’s not difficult to include some mindfulness into our everyday life – we just need to remember to be mindful, which sometimes is easier said than done! But there are some simple tips which can really help us to start to become more mindful during the day. Here are a few of my favourites:

Each week, choose a new activity to be mindful of. This is best something which you do regularly, such as brushing your teeth, walking to station, or eating breakfast. Allow yourself to slow down and really notice every aspect of the activity. For example, if you’ve chosen brushing your teeth, then you can notice the feel of the toothbrush, the fresh taste of the toothpaste, the sensation of water, and the clean feeling of your teeth afterwards.

Drive without the radio or music, at least sometimes. This can be wonderfully restorative. Often we’re surrounded by so much sound, to have some time out can be very refreshing.

When you walk, notice the sensation of the ground underneath your feet. Try not to think too much ahead or ruminate about the past – just feel the sensation of walking, and enjoy it.

Stop for a moment and tune into the sounds around you. Often, we miss a lot of the richness of the present moment because we’re so caught up in the thinking mind. Allow yourself to hear sounds as if they’re part of a symphony.

Replace your frown with a gentle half smile. This smile can be very subtle, barely perceptible – but it can make a powerful difference to our day. We can get into the habit of frowning without even realising it, and this makes us look and feel anxious.

Tune into your breath. Your breath is your friend, and it’s always in the present moment. What more could you want?

Find your own little moments of mindfulness – what are some parts of the day you would love to be more mindful of?

Weekly practice idea:

This week, choose at least two of these ideas and practise them once a day. Enjoy!

Walking meditation is a beautiful practice which can be like a bridge between our formal sitting meditation and everyday life. There are many different ways to practise walking meditation, and the focus of our attention can be on the soles of our feet, our whole body, or the environment. Sometimes it’s done very slowly, other times quite fast, but our aim is to meditate, not to get from A to B. Even when we do have a destination (for example during pilgrimage), our focus is still on the present moment rather than the future.

My favourite form of walking meditation is done very slowly, allowing our attention to rest on the soles of the feet. We coordinate the movements with the breath, and we notice the lifting of the foot, touching the heel, transferring the weight onto the whole foot as the back heel rises, and so on. The eyes are soft, gazing downward, and our focus is on the sensations in the soles of the feet as we pay attention to the steady movements of our feet. We might notice different textures under our feet – for example from grass to a concrete path, or from the shady area into an area warmed by the sun inside a room. Sometimes it feels comfortable to have our hands resting on our abdomen, which relaxes the shoulders and deepens our breathing.

It is a very grounding practice, and can help us during the day as we walk from the desk to the photocopier, from the shops to the car, and so on. Of course in that case we may want to speed up the walking a little – we’d look slightly odd if we took five minutes to walk 50 metres! But I find even then that if I slow my walk down by 10%, and tune into the contact between the soles of the feet and the ground, I recall the slow walking meditation and feel grounded by the practice.

Sometimes, if we are restless, it can be helpful to practise the walking meditation for a while before moving into the sitting meditation. If we’re highly distressed for some reason, a mindful walking meditation can be very soothing. We might want to repeat certain phrases with each step, such as the walking gatha above, or anything else which evokes feelings of peace within us. This can enhance the practice considerably, and could be a simple word or phrase, such as ‘peace’, or ‘I walk in peace’.

Weekly practice idea:

Set aside 10 minutes to practise a slow, formal walking meditation, focusing on the sensations in the soles of the feet. Then tune into the soles of the feet as you walk at other times during the week, and notice how this feels for you.

One of the challenging after-effects of trauma can be a sense of being stuck in the past – whether it’s in the form of flashbacks which take us right back to the event, or else a sense of bitterness or hardening creeping into our lives. Anything which interferes with our sense of wholeness and control can be traumatic – this includes being attacked or being caught up in a natural disaster, but it can also be surgery, divorce, being unemployed, or being discriminated against. While we’re in the midst of an emergency we may need to be very strong in order to survive, whether literally or metaphorically, and we find ourselves toughening up. This allows us to get through the event, and of course we need a certain amount of hardiness in order to get by in life. Yet over time, this toughness can become a shell which keeps us trapped, and which prevents us from fulfilling our potential. The strategies we used in order to survive can become our prison, and they can control our lives long after the need for them has passed.

It is the difference between stagnant water trapped in a barrel, and a bubbling brook of clear spring water flowing through a forest. When we begin to flow again, the traumas of our past can gradually be released. The progress may be slow, and we may need a lot of support, but there is a sense of movement rather than entrapment.

There are many ways we can cultivate a sense of flow in our lives. Anything which involves moving our bodies, whether it’s Tai Chi, playing sport, dancing, yoga or walking, allows our energies to start flowing again. Sometimes even just a brisk walk around the block can be enough to lift our spirits. Moving our bodies in whichever way feels joyful to us is wonderfully therapeutic, and we can easily underestimate just how beneficial it is for our bodies to simply be moving.

Music also helps us to experience a sense of flow – whether we’re listening, or else singing or playing music, it never stands still. Music has this beautiful quality of allowing us to be engaged with it even as it is constantly changing and flowing. When we are present with music, it carries us along – neither feeling stuck nor direction-less. It is constantly changing, yet has its own internal logic and structure which holds and supports us.

Meditation can help us to experience this sense of flow and support as well. When we meditate regularly, we soon notice that no thought, emotion or sensation remains the same for very long. Everything is constantly changing, and with practice we can learn to relax into the flow of experience, rather than fighting it, or wanting to grasp onto it and hold it. We learn to go with the flow, rather than constantly putting up blockages and dams which take a lot of energy to maintain, and which prevent us from being freely in the moment.

Weekly practice idea:

What in your life helps to give you a sense of flow? Make a commitment to yourself to experience this activity this week, and notice how it feels.